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Loading...Dragging Monsanto To Justice
- Laetitia Mailhes
- January 30, 2011
- 2:09 pm
- 116 comments
The mood of the Eco-Farm Conference’s 1,000 attendees turned somber this week when the announcement was made from the pulpit, on Friday morning, that the Obama Administration had decided to deregulate Monsanto’s genetically-modified (GM) alfalfa.
“This is a sad day for the future of sustainable agriculture”, pioneering organic farmer Larry Jacobs, President of Jacobs Farm-Del Cabo, summarized in the press release published by the Ecological Farming Association that organizes the annual conference in Pacific Grove, California.
Alfalfa is the fourth most important crop grown on American soil behind corn, soybeans and wheat. According to sustainable food systems advocate and author Michael Pollan, “93 percent of alfalfa hay is grown without any herbicide at all”, which means that the GM alfalfa seed developed by Monsanto in order to resist its Roundup herbicide “is a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist”.
It is a bad solution because alfalfa pollen is exceptionally volatile, traveling easily for miles courtesy of insects and breezes. In other words, GM alfalfa is a prime candidate for the harmful transgenic contamination of conventional crops through cross-pollination—a phenomenon that biologists call “gene flow”. The Supreme Court accepted that much in a ruling given last June in the case brought by the Center for Food Safety and other plaintiffs against the USDA after a premature deregulation of GM alfalfa.
The disastrous chain of events that could result from the planting of GM alfalfa is better understood when one realizes that alfalfa hay is a staple diet of dairy and beef cattle. More to the point, organic farmers rely on organic alfalfa to feed their animals. In the absence of GMO labeling in the United-States, the organic label is the only non-GMO guarantee offered to consumers. In fact, 83% of organic consumers say they purchase organic food specifically to avoid GMO, according to the Stonyfield Farm Case Study (2009). Contamination of alfalfa fields by GMO signals the end of organic crops, and consequently jeopardizes the organic practices and label of organic farms, putting their very survival at risk.
Opponents to GM alfalfa are bracing for a legal fight.
Read more: Blogs, Conscious Consumer, The Green Plate, Uncategorized, Center for Food Safety, GMO, Monsanto, organic farms, patents
Laetitia Mailhes
Laetitia Mailhes is a French-born journalist. After many years as the technology and innovation correspondent of the French "Financial Times" in San Francisco, she decided to focus on what truly matters to her: sustainable food and farming. Find more articles and videos on her blog, The Green Plate Blog.
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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people are talking
Thanks for the effort.
If it tastes good, I'll try it (if I can find it) Not that I need to lose fat but because it's good…
ty
thanks
when is it as I've seen different days listed.
116 comments
+ add your ownHELL YEAH!!!
Thank you for posting.
they don't know what they're doing, and they don't care.
Me thinks this needs to hit the fan in a BIG way to Washington!! We CANNOT let Monsanto or any other Big Agro do this to us!!
When will the 'idiot' government wake up and put corporations like Monsanto out of business? Half the population of the western world is dying of cancer already what with the greed of food producers and cosmetic industry!
My concern with the Monsanto' of the world is the production of indestructible or uncontrolable varieties such as roundup resistant alfafa. This is going to create major problems in the future when it starts invading corn fields etc. The production of a drought resistant variety of corn doesn't concern me as it can still be controlled unlike Monsanto.
Probably more frightening is the illogical reasoning of vegans that becoming a vegan will cure all these ills. Soy has already been modified as have many other choice vegan products.
Make a difference, plant a tree.
Ugh, Monsanto is so evil. I try to let everyone know about how horrible that corporation is. Please spread the word to everyone. I hope someday they get put out of business like so many farmers have because of being sued by Monsanto! It amazes me that they are able to put someone out of business because MC's GMO crops infiltrated and CONTAMINATED the farmer's crops. It's the most backwards thing ever. It's so tragically sad to hear the stories of farmers who have worked so hard their whole lives only to have Monsanto come along and destroy everything they've worked for. Just the fact that Monsanto has what amount to spies that sneak around the US inspecting farmer's crops for supposed "infringement" of their GMO seeds is just dirty. When the "infringement" was unintentional on the part of the farmer, usually due to seeds blowing off of a truck passing by on the road or carried by wind or birds from another field. So incredibly sad. Sorry for the novel, it's just so infuriating.
Everytime I hear the name "Monsanto" my stomach churns.....it is the monster of this century
As US patent owner, I completely see the need to fight for anything crumb we could get in court. It took me 6 yrs fighting in the USPTO office to get my patent. You might have seen it on my Care2 page. I juse the profit from the sale of this US made product to support causes. I give away more money than I keep. Mainly because I don't need that much now to live. When you simplify your life, its amazing how little you really do "need". Blessings!
You can sign petitions, get mad, cuss or whatever, it won't change one thing. HOWEVER, just stop eating anything that has to do with their "gmo crap crops" and we hurt them in the pocketbook. Then we have power. Then we speak. Everything else is just a charade. Of course, we need EVERYONE to do this, so meat eaters....consider being vegan!
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